The present invention relates to packaging for hearing aid batteries in general, and to devices for facilitating the insertion of batteries into a hearing aid in particular.
It is hard to exaggerate the importance of hearing and successful communication and interaction with the community. Those who suffer from hearing loss can easily become isolated, finding even common day-to-day activities greatly complicated. The invention of the electronic hearing aid, worn in or on the ear, has contributed greatly to improving the lives of hearing loss sufferers.
Improvements in electronic miniaturization have resulted in very small hearing aids which are capable of being unobtrusively worn within a user's ear. These small hearing aids are not only lighter weight and easier to wear, but they are cosmetically superior in that they do not detract from the wearer's appearance.
Yet, reduced hearing aid size comes at a cost: the batteries which supply power through the hearing aids must also decrease in size, and must be replaced at regular intervals. Anyone will have some difficulty in manipulating an object which has a diameter of less than half the width of a finger. For those who suffer from reduced dexterity, this difficulty will only be amplified.
A number of battery insertion devices have been developed to address this need. One approach is to package the batteries in a molded plastic dispenser which is capable of presenting each battery in a manner to protrude upwardly to be engaged in the battery door of a hearing aid. Not only are such devices costly to fabricate, but the increased thickness of the package consumes greater shelf space at the retail establishment, further contributing to cost. Another approach is to dispose the individual hearing aid batteries on flexible paper strips connected along perforations within a paper cover, similar to a matchbook. These folded, stapled, and die cut paper assemblies can be relatively costly, and may still be demanding of the user's manual dexterity.
What is needed is a hearing aid battery packaging assembly which is economical to produce, compact to display, and which facilitates easy insertion of the batteries into hearing aids.